CVE-2021-43797

HTTP fails to validate against control chars in header names which may lead to HTTP request smuggling

Published Dec 9, 2021 CVSS 3.1 · 6.5 Medium EPSS 2.9% KEV · Not listed
Description
Netty is an asynchronous event-driven network application framework for rapid development of maintainable high performance protocol servers & clients. Netty prior to version 4.1.71.Final skips control chars when they are present at the beginning / end of the header name. It should instead fail fast as these are not allowed by the spec and could lead to HTTP request smuggling. Failing to do the validation might cause netty to "sanitize" header names before it forward these to another remote system when used as proxy. This remote system can't see the invalid usage anymore, and therefore does not do the validation itself. Users should upgrade to version 4.1.71.Final.

Remediation

No solution or workaround provided in the CVE record

Tracking

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Advisories

Source ID Title
Debian DLA Debian DLA DLA-3268-1 netty security update
Debian DSA Debian DSA DSA-5316-1 netty security update
EUVD EUVD EUVD-2021-2607 Netty is an asynchronous event-driven network application framework for rapid development of maintainable high performance protocol servers & clients. Netty prior to version 4.1.71.Final skips control chars when they are present at the beginning / end of the header name. It should instead fail fast as these are not allowed by the spec and could lead to HTTP request smuggling. Failing to do the validation might cause netty to "sanitize" header names before it forward these to another remote system when used as proxy. This remote system can't see the invalid usage anymore, and therefore does not do the validation itself. Users should upgrade to version 4.1.71.Final.
Github GHSA Github GHSA GHSA-wx5j-54mm-rqqq HTTP request smuggling in netty
Ubuntu USN Ubuntu USN USN-6049-1 Netty vulnerabilities
History
Type Values Removed Values Added
Metrics ssvc

{'options': {'Automatable': 'no', 'Exploitation': 'none', 'Technical Impact': 'partial'}, 'version': '2.0.3'}

Weaknesses

Sources

Status
PUBLISHED
Assigner
GitHub_M
Published
Updated
Oct 8, 2026, 9:13 PM
Reserved
Nov 16, 2021, 12:00 AM
Status
Modified
Published
Dec 9, 2021, 7:15 PM
Modified
Oct 8, 2026, 10:17 PM
Severity
Moderate
Public date
Dec 9, 2021, 12:00 AM